


To Fracture

by ladylapislazuli



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Psychosis, Unreliable Narrator, this is not a nice fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 20:22:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3087866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylapislazuli/pseuds/ladylapislazuli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky breathes in the smell of Steve’s hair, the scent of cologne faint on his skin. Bucky’s cologne, because Steve never bought his own, Steve wasn’t vain like him, Steve never –</p>
<p>He never –</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Fracture

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Serious mental health issues. Very, very light dubcon.
> 
> A big thank you to [lucymonster](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster) for all her help, both as a beta and a cheerleader. Thanks also to [Ingu](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingu) for looking this over.

Steve greets him at the door, brow already furrowing as he brushes dirt from Bucky’s shoulders, and Bucky can practically feel the impending lecture about the state of his clothes – _Christ Almighty, Buck, what were you doing, rolling around in dirt?_ But when Steve meets his eyes, he smiles.

“Good day?” Steve asks, his smile soft, eyes fond, hands settling gently on Bucky’s shoulders, so small and fragile he can barely feel their weight.

His eyes are so very, very blue, and Bucky is too caught up in them to answer. He leans down, brushing the rough pad of his thumb against Steve’s narrow jaw, tilting Steve’s head up for a kiss. Steve doesn’t let him.

“Stop that, you big lunk,” he laughs, swatting him away.

Bucky just grabs his wrists, so thin his fingers can wrap the whole way around them, catches Steve’s flailing hands and cradles them to his chest, to his heart. He steals his kisses, and Steve is squirming and trying to get away, face crinkled up in mock disgust for all the laughter that bubbles in his chest. Bucky kisses his cheek, his jaw, his forehead, even the tip of his nose, but Steve jerks more roughly when Bucky tries for his lips, and Bucky has to release him. His grip is strong, too strong for Stevie no matter what the stupid punk might think, and he doesn’t want to hurt him. Never that.

“Come on, I made dinner,” Steve says, and his smile glows in the fading light of the sun.

Bucky follows him across the threshold, letting the heavy door swing shut behind him to prevent a draft. Steve gets sick so easily, though he looks healthy enough now. His eyes are bright, his skin tanned, though never as dark as long hours at the docks turns Bucky’s. His cheeks are flushed pink, so faint that anyone who knew him less wouldn’t catch it, but even in the dim light of their kitchen he is a light, a beacon, and Bucky’s heart is warm in his chest.

Bucky sits, and the wooden chair is hard and cold beneath him, but at least it doesn’t wobble. It would probably be easier if Steve sat on it, given the lightness of his frame, but it’s always threatening to collapse and Bucky would rather be the one on it when it finally does. It wouldn’t do Steve’s back any good, so Bucky takes it and makes do.

“Here.”

Steve sets a bowl in front of him, and Bucky thanks him perfunctorily before tucking in. His hunger, he realises, is gnawing, and the need for food temporarily overwhelms him. He is finished quicker than he expects, his belly still turning itself over in knots, but it can’t be helped, not now. He’ll be all right. He worries about Stevie, though, and sneaks a glance. Steve’s bowl is already clean. He smiles when Bucky looks up, but it wasn’t enough food, it can’t have been. Bucky will have to work harder tomorrow.

“You must be exhausted,” Steve says. He leans forward, and his fingers dance across the back of Bucky’s hand where it lies on the table, his touch as light as wind, a shiver across Bucky’s skin. He does not have Bucky’s callouses, Bucky’s roughness, hands gnarled and strong and wickedly fast.

Bucky stands, and his knees shake slightly beneath him. His right shoulder aches, but it is mostly healed. The healing takes a lot out of him. He is very tired.

He settles down on the mattress. It feels cold and hard against his back, but then he and Steve have never had much money, have never been able to afford anything nice or soft. Bucky uses his left arm as a pillow, though it is hard and unyielding, leaves his injured arm for Steve to rest his own head. It is the softer of the two.

“You should take your boots off.”

Steve sits down by the bedside, scowling at Bucky’s feet, a little furrow forming between his brows.

“Bucky,” he repeats, looking crosser by the minute. “Take your boots off. Ma says you can’t have shoes on the bed.”

Bucky doesn’t move, though his boots feel oddly heavy on his feet. _No shoes on the bed_. It is a rule, eternal, unbreakable - no matter how he grows and changes it is immutable and unshakable, constant and irreversible. No shoes on the bed. And yet he can’t take them off, because the precious seconds it would take to put them on again could mean a bullet between the eyes.

“ _Bucky_.”

“I can’t, Stevie,” he rasps. His lips are chapped, and he licks them. It only makes them sting.

Steve huffs, but stops arguing. He settles in against Bucky, and Bucky closes his eyes, breathes in the smell of Steve’s hair, the scent of cologne faint on his skin. _Bucky’s_ cologne, because Steve never bought his own, Steve wasn’t vain like him, Steve never –

He never –

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut. Sleep, that’s all he needs. Sleep.

\- - -

When Bucky heads out the next day, he is alone.

He shoves his hands into his pockets, ignoring the twinge in his right arm, and walks. The smell of old garbage and truck exhaust slowly gives way to the smells of the city, cars and sweat and the occasional waft of perfume. He lets the people on the sidewalk carry him along, shadowing them on some half-forgotten instinct, tracking their path then breaking away when he has followed them far enough. A woman with a mobile phone pressed to her ear, a man with his pants slung too low, an older man, greying hair, sharp suit – _leaning over, whispering and murmuring and the straps are tight around Bucky’s wrists and electricity sparks in his ears and_ –

Steve will worry if he’s late. Bucky’s breath is coming fast, but he can’t afford to rest, can’t afford distractions. Steve will be hungry, and Bucky has to look after him. And more than that, he _misses_ him, aches and yearns – _where is Steve he’ll come for me he has to please God please_ – and Bucky must return to him.

He is 2.25 miles away from his hideout. The time is 8:05am, according to the passing flash of a golden watch. It is Tuesday. That means shops will be open.

He walks past the gleaming white of a modern supermarket, ignores the food vendor who is already set up on the street and is bouncing on her feet with her hands shoved into her armpits. On the corner is a small, dingy shopfront with a battered sign, dark shelves and browning bananas out the front, and it is there Bucky goes. He slips in behind a family, small children crying and grubby hands touching places they shouldn’t, the shop keeper’s eyes following them, following the movement and noise and the manhandling of his wares while Bucky goes in and out without him noticing. His pockets are weighed down with tinned beans, a few apples, a handful of bars sealed in plastic and covered in brightly-coloured words he had no time to read.

Steve doesn’t need to know he stole them.

Food acquired, Bucky treks back the way he came, weaves in and out of the steadily increasing pedestrian traffic, makes his way back to the quiet seclusion of his home with Steve. He has been walking for a long time, but his legs are strong and sturdy. He could walk further yet _– get out, get out, run run run_ \- but he doesn’t need to, not now. He is not alone. He has Steve.

He pushes open the door, and Steve comes to greet him again, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s neck. Bucky breathes in the smell of him, closes his eyes as he feels the brush of blond hair against his cheek. He presses his lips against Steve’s forehead and holds them there, holds that small frame against his own.

It is Steve who pulls away – _always, always_ – and Bucky fishes the food out of his pockets. They have no stove, so they eat the beans cold. They settle the ache in Bucky’s belly, but Steve is so thin and frail and Bucky knows he will have to do better by him. He has to get money, somehow. Get money and then…

Then what?

“We should go out tonight,” Steve says. His eyes are blue and bright, sparkling at him, and Bucky’s lips twitch in response. Stevie, his Stevie, always his light and joy, gentle smiles and easy affection, warm and welcoming and everything Bucky ever wanted – _blood and fists and righteous fury, a temper too simmering and implacable and brows always drawn low in a frown_ – and Bucky is not good enough and never has been.

“C’mon, Buck,” Steve sighs. He pulls at his collar, tugs at the sleeves hanging slightly too low over his wrists. He is antsy, fidgeting, too much energy in too small a frame. “I’m _bored_. Let’s go someplace nice, let’s go _dancing_.”

But Bucky is tired, so tired. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, just to give them some rest. When he opens them again Steve is sitting in his chair at the table, head tilted to the side, hair coming loose and falling across his eyes. He’s smiling up at Bucky, and it does funny things to Bucky’s insides. He is walking across the room before he even means to, jerky and stiff, and settling into the chair across from Steve. Steve smiles, lips pouty and plump and perfect, and Bucky wants to kiss them like an ache.

“Let’s just sit, Stevie,” he says, and Stevie – Steve – he smiles. Blinks his eyes slowly, long lashes shuttering over endless blue then opening wide and sweet. And Bucky, with his heart in his throat and yearning in every part of his soul – he drowns.

“Whatever you want, Buck,” Steve tells him, lips quirking, eyes flashing. Teasing, tender, coy, anything Bucky wants, anything at all.

But Bucky, he – he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want for anything. Nothing more than this.

“I know,” Steve says, and takes Bucky’s hand in his own.

\- - -

It doesn’t take long for Hydra to catch up to Bucky.

He is clever. He is careful. He takes only what he needs, keeps his head down, speaks only in the safety of their home, when Steve is just a step away from his arms. He is so careful.

It doesn’t matter.

A scientist, an agent, standing in the brightly lit grocery store and smiling at the cashier like he’s done nothing wrong, like he hasn’t strapped Bucky into a chair and split him open over and over and over. He stands and smiles and laughs, and there is cereal in his basket, and salad, and biscuits, and he pulls out money with hands that have pulled Bucky apart.

Hydra has caught up. Or turned up, anyway. Near Bucky, near _Steve_.

He cannot allow it. His throat goes tight, his muscles stiff, his heart thundering in his chest, and his feet threaten to disobey him, but he has to, he _has_ to. Hydra is close, and Bucky must snuff it out.

He follows the man to his car. The man is humming slightly under his breath, looking up and smiling as birds fly overhead. He gets in and starts the engine, and Bucky follows in the way Hydra taught him to, slow, steady, inevitable. Waiting for a moment of vulnerability.

He waits, until the man is in his home, doors and windows locked. He waits, until the man is all alone, until the man thinks he is safe, even though Bucky knows there is no such things as safety. It was Hydra who taught him that. They would do well to learn their own lessons.

Bucky snaps the man’s neck.

He marches home with his hands in his pockets. Steve looks up from where he’s sprawled out on the bed, and his lips begin to curl only for his mouth to fall open in shock. Expressions flicker across Steve’s face so readily, lips twisting and moulding with every thought that crosses his mind, and Bucky can barely keep up. Steve’s eyes flash, and finally, finally his face settles, brows drawn down, lips pressed into a long, firm line.

“What have you been doing?” Steve asks, voice sharp, sharper than its usual, gentle cadence – _is it gentle?_ _Has Steve ever been gentle?_ – making to stand. Bucky is too quick for him.

Shrugging off his jacket, he crawls onto the bed and traps Steve with his limbs, covering that frail, bony body with his own and pressing his face in the juncture between neck and shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent. Musk and citrus and the summer sun, and Bucky nuzzles close, ignores the way Steve’s hands go to his chest, not pushing him away, but not letting him closer either.

“Buck – Bucky,” Steve protests, squirming beneath him.

Bucky’s hands find the hollow points of Steve’s hips, the bird-like bones, hollow, light, so light that Steve will fly away from him, fly away to warmth of the sun where he belongs and Bucky will be all alone. Steve will fly and Bucky cannot follow, so he can’t let him, can’t let him go, _just a little more time_.

“Bucky, you’re hurting me,” Steve says, breath catching in his lungs, struggling in Bucky’s grip with his face drawn up in an expression of pain, and Bucky’s hands are big and rough and cruel, too cruel. Bucky jerks them back, but they leave red marks on Steve’s skin, burn him, sully him.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says, because the words of apology die before they even reach his tongue. He is sorry, he is. But then, he always is. It never makes a difference.

Steve’s expression is crumpled, and he scrambles away from Bucky, far enough that he is teetering on the edge of the bed. “You did it, though,” he says, and the betrayal in his eyes makes Bucky’s chest clench and ache and bleed.

“I didn’t _mean_ to,” he insists, and despite the hoarseness of his voice the knowledge is like a burst of flame within him, a heat in his chest that he thought had long since burned out. He didn’t mean to. His sole defence, the only fragment left of him that might save his soul.

“You hurt me,” Steve accuses, and Bucky wants to reach for him but doesn’t. Steve is too far away, beyond his reach, and if he moves too close Steve will fall.

There they stay, locked in place on a precipice. Except… there is no bed. Just a mat on a concrete floor, and Steve is only a breath away but Bucky can neither reach out nor allow him to leave. He needs him. Bucky needs him.

“You have to let me go, Buck.”

Bucky shuts his eyes, and Steve’s image flickers in and out of his vision. When he opens them Steve is smiling at him, pouty lips and long nose in a narrow face. His hair is messy, like he’s been running his hands through it too many times, making it worse rather than better. His head is tilted, his smile wry.

His eyes, though. His eyes look sad.

Bucky shakes his head, balling his hands into fists. One of his palms is dry and cracking, the other is cold and smooth, and when did that happen, when did he…?

“I have to go, Bucky. I have to. I gotta do this.”

Stupid jerk, gonna get himself killed, always taking risks that men three times his size wouldn’t dare. Brave, always so brave. No matter how much terror chokes his lungs, Steve stays strong, keeps going, keeps fighting, and he’ll keep fighting until death finally takes him away. Bucky isn’t brave, not like Steve. Bucky gave in.

Steve is still looking at him, and Bucky reaches out, takes Steve’s hand in his cracking palm. Steve’s hand is so small in his, light and unspeakably fragile – but that isn’t right. Steve’s hands are big, have always been big, masculine hands made to fit a man twice his size. _They thump heavily on his shoulder, fingertips brushing against the bare skin of Bucky’s neck, and Bucky wants to catch them in his own but he cannot, doesn’t dare, forces down the shiver that threatens to break over his skin._

Steve’s hands are always cold.

“You can’t go.” The words trip strangely from Bucky’s tongue – garbled, slurred, imprecise.

“I already have, Buck,” Steve says. He smiles again, and he is – bigger, stronger. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head.

“Not yet,” he murmurs. “Not yet.” His hands ball into fists in his lap, the taste of copper lingers on his tongue.

“Okay,” Steve says. Bucky opens his eyes, and there Steve sits, _his_ Steve, small and smiling at him with sad, sad eyes. “Okay, Buck.”

_You can do this, Buck. You don’t need me dragging you down. You go keep the girls company, I’ll stay here_ _-_ but he never did, always looking for trouble and he’d never let Bucky help him. Proud and tough and too serious for his own good, and Bucky tried so hard not to show him, tried so hard to pretend that his heart wasn’t – that he didn’t –

“Stay,” he repeats, and Steve settles his arms around his shoulder and presses his lips to Bucky’s hair, and it is enough.

\- - -

He is being hunted.

That is not new. He is always being hunted, tracked, dragged around like a wayward animal. A weapon, a gun, a fist.

Not with Stevie, though.

Steve sighs in Bucky’s arms, nuzzling against his neck, allowing Bucky to cradle him against his chest. Bucky’s nose is buried in his hair, so that every breath smells of Steve, every one of his senses sight taste touch belongs to Steve and Steve alone. His pursuers do not matter when he is with Steve. Not Hydra, not the police, not the man he fought on the Helicarrier, big and strong with eyes of cornflower blue, familiar as the breath in his lungs, _I knew him_.

No, no. It’s all wrong, _he’s_ all wrong, stretched out of shape, and Bucky needs _his_ Steve, needs his -

Steve is so small, so frail, and he needs this, needs Bucky to care for him, needs Bucky to protect him. He lets Bucky hold him, kiss him, sighs when Bucky’s lips brush against his skin, yields - _stubborn hands shoving him away, blue eyes looking up at him with such strength, such force, such anger, a big man in a tiny body, never wanted protection, never needed him, never never never –_

“I love you, Bucky.”

Bucky’s heart thuds in his chest.

“I…” Bucky starts, but his voice cracks and breaks, throat rough as ash.

“You love me, right? You love me, don’t you, Bucky?” Steve pulls back to look at Bucky’s face. His eyes are so blue, and Bucky can’t help it, can’t help but reach up with one hand to trace the line of his jaw, to feel the warmth and solidity of Steve in his arms, to trace the face he knows – _how does he know how how_ – better than his own.

He can’t feel a thing.

He blinks, looks down. His arm is metal. He cannot feel.

“Bucky, you love me? You love me?”

“You love me,” Bucky repeats, soft, hesitant. He reels Steve in closer, but he cannot get warm, and the mattress is too hard. He smells exhaust, trash, metal, clogging up his nose, bittering the taste in his mouth. He closes his eyes. “You love me,” he says again, a mantra, a prayer. Please, please, please. _Steve shakes Bucky’s arm off his shoulders, and Bucky’s chest aches but he bites his tongue because of course Steve doesn’t, of course he can’t_  - “You love me. You love me.”

\- - - - -

The man, big and blond and _wrong wrong wrong_ follows him, hounds him, casts his net across the city, wider and wider, closer and closer. Bucky hunkers down in his hiding place, skin stained with dirt and ash and dust, crawls into the damp and dark where he will be hidden. He cannot leave for food, for air, for water, and yet he _must_ because of Stevie, he has to take care of his Stevie.

He has to risk it. He has no choice. He leaves only in the darkest hours of night, and when he returns it takes his hands some time to stop their shaking.

Steve sits on the cold concrete floor, head cocked to the side so his hair flops into his eyes, shoulders broad and long legs sprawled out across the floor, so big, _too_ big, and Bucky chokes back a noise and shuts his eyes.

He opens them, and Steve is biting at his lip, small hands cradled between spindly legs. When he rises it is with a wheeze, with a rustle and shifting of fabric that is draped far too generously across his skinny frame. He takes a few steps forward, but Bucky steps back, and Steve’s lips turn down.

“Bucky, love -”

And Bucky could light a fire with the heat that fills his chest, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. _Bucky, love_. Did Steve ever… did he? _I love you_ , he had said, but he said it here, now, in this time and place. _I love you I love you_ – but that’s not – it isn’t -

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, takes in a breath.

“Bucky, pal -”

But that’s not right, either. It’s hollow, empty, detached and mechanical like a doll on a string, an echo long distorted by the passage of time. And when Bucky opens his eyes, Steve is big again, hulking, huge, _I know him_ but it’s not right, he needs his Stevie, _please_ -

“Go away,” Bucky moans, rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes, and it makes one of them _hurt_ – cold metal plates rubbing against his tender flesh, and when did that happen, he didn’t want it, he didn’t – but when he looks up Steve is still there, still staring, his face twisted into an ugly sneer.

“This is all your fault. You did this. You’re a traitor and a murderer and this is _all your fault_ ,” Steve tells him, and his beautiful face is so full of hatred and _truth_ that Bucky cannot look at him.

“I tried I tried I tried,” he is mumbling, a blurred litany of sound, but Steve cuts him off with a harsh laugh.

“You _tried_? You barely even fought. You killed people with your own hands, killed them all. Killed _me_.”

Bucky’s head snaps up, stomach roiling in horror, the sudden piercing of cold in his chest making him reel, making every breath a stab of pain. “I didn’t, I _didn’t -_ ”

But blood is trickling down Steve’s chest, belly, thigh, bullet wounds Bucky put in him, _so small and frail don’t hurt him never that_. His face is marred, tarnished, ruined by the pounding of Bucky’s fists. And right before his eyes Stevie falls, he _falls_ , and Bucky reaches out with a cry but doesn’t catch him _can’t_ catch him no no no

\- - -

“Hey, Buck?” Steve says, sitting with his back against the wall, blond hair bright against the dusty grey. “I’m glad you’re with me.”

Bucky licks his chapped lips, ignoring their sting. His hair hangs limp and matted in front of his eyes, and his hands are blackened with dirt and damp. One still gleams in the dark, but he balls it up, hides it away. His throat is dry, his stomach gnawing.

His voice is raspy, faint, useless, but it crackles out of him all the same. “Me too.”

 


End file.
